Short-sighted, simplistic complaints

Useful idiots, writing pro-Jihadi propaganda in the form of op-eds. Of course those idiots don't mention the gays Iran executes nor do they mention the women that are raped before they execute them. Not surprised that pasty white faced progressive leftwing males write such drivel, they abandoned women decades ago.

I'm not sure that Harper is acting as a 'message boy' for anyone. Possibly Israel. Certainly not for Obama who has shown that he has no message, other than 'If you like ME, ME, The Great One, ..THEN, you'll behave'.

Harper tried to get Putin to stop supporting Syria but made no headway there. Putin, I think, supports Obama because he knows that if Obama wins, then he, Putin, can do what he wants. Obama hasn't the spine to react and confront on his own.

One thing about Harper; he's a superb chess player on the world chess board. As for the left, they loathe Harper and the CPC anyway, so this is just a delightful Hate Fest for them. Watch them do their usual, and call him 'fascist' (which shows they've no idea what the term means) and 'dictator' and so on.

'Good article by Claudia Rossett over at PJ Media about this:

" ... Diplomatic courtesies have their place, but they should also have their limits. Iran itself is in flagrant violation not only of UN sanctions, but of the UN charter itself. The U.S. government may place high value on honoring its commitments to the UN, but what happens when a UN member state exploits its seat to monstrous ends? ... Canada has just stepped up on the side of the Free World, shuttered its embassy in Tehran and told Iran’s regime to get its official tentacles out of Ottawa. A terrific initiative, and the kind of example that other leaders of the Free World would do well to follow."

http://pjmedia.com/claudiarosett/canadas-extremely-worthwhile-iran-initiative/?singlepage=true

The two "jouranlists" featured are idiots who have no clue about strategic and diplomatic decisions. These are the same types who criticized Canada for keeping the Iraqi embassy open in Ottawa following Saddam's invasion of Kuwait in 1990. They simply didn't realize that the embassy was delibertatly kept open because we and our allies were using it as an effective listening post to determine Saddam's intentions and strategies. It was probably the most effective source of intelligence supporting Desert Storm.

The low level of effective reasoning among the lamestream media is increasingly discouraging.

What Bruce said...and even more discouraging...the lemmings that read the tripe and don't have a clue, as evidenced in the comments.

I can't think how ending relations with Iran would put us in a position, as a proxy, that could benefit anyone other than ourselves. Why is it hard to believe that Canada received intelligence that makes it wise for us to leave? As far as Canadian citizens in Iran - tough titty you fools.

"Tony Burman, former head of Al Jazeera English and CBC News, teaches journalism at Ryerson University"

'nuff said.

Scar, Iran isn't who we're talking to. They are irrelevant, as is Canada.

Two trouble spots in the ME/Asia. Both have the blessing of the Russians.

There is a lot of pressure from all corners about the West intervening in Syria. I personally am against that, but whatever, I think it's going to happen.

That directly involves Russia and Iran has said it will get involved if the West goes in.

Both regimes are of little consequence on the world stage, but Russia is a very different story. No one wants another Vietnam or Korea.

ET, how many times was Libya mentioned at the DNC?

I think you underestimate Obama. He's cornered and that's dangerous.

BRAVO to Harper and Baird shuttering our embassy in Tehran and tossing from Ottawa those Iranian criminals posing as diplomats. Perhaps the Leftards, as evidenced in the G&M comments, would prefer we suck up to these "well-intentioned but misguided" people, much like old Jack wanted us to do with the Taliban. Sure, we could do that - if they could find the time between stoning rape victims, hanging homosexuals and beheading children. Here's hoping Israel pulls the trigger. Obama sure as hell hasn't the cojones.

Maybe the cbc could set up shop in the Iranian Embassy???

lance - underestimate Obama? To do what?

He's someone who will, when confronted with an unpleasant reality, first attempt to deny that it exists. If he can't, he'll then try to fob off responsibiity for it to someone else.

If he's forced into an acknowledgment, he's quite capable of malice, for he IS a malicious and vindictive person...against YOU, for making him deal with reality.

What do you mean by Obama being cornered? By whom? Russia? Where are Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iraq, UAE in this situation. None of them want to see an imperialist Iran.

I think he's in trouble of not being re-elected.

He needs his base to get out on election day and they are clamouring for a Libya like intervention in Syria.

I don't think Iran is on his radar unless something happens, but with Iran saying they'll get involved if the West goes into Syria you have the potential for a really big flair-up.

Lance, unless you haven't noticed, Iran is already involved in Syria. At least that's what I gathered from hearing that Iran's Revolutionary Guard were fighting along side Assad's army.

Personally I think this has way more to do with Harper closing our embassy than any other issue.

It also doesn't hurt to get rid of the Iranian Embassy in Canada, because of all the spying going on against Canada and Iranian Canadians.

Its also possible that Canada has received info about an Israeli strike on Iran and is getting out of the way.

There are so many reasons that we need to get out of there right now.

Funny, I thought this was a simple choice between good and evil. I guess I'm just too stupid be a lefty journalist because I think that a terrorist sponsoring, election rigging regime that has declared the 'zionist entity' is a cancer that shall be erased is evil.

My thinking is that the Israelis are reading the tea leaves regarding the US election. If there is time, it would make sense to wait until Obama is back in Chicago and a President sympathetic to Israel is in the Oval Office. It is always an advantage to have the USN carrier task forces backing you up.

Is this prelude to an Israeli pre-emptive strike?
If so whose side is Obama on?

Good for PM Harper and Minister John Baird.

There are a number of articles in the Telegraph about Iran and there seems to be some sort converging of events other than just the nuclear issue.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/

Useful idiots like Saunders and Burman wrote the same kind of tripe of peaceful negotiations with Hitler between the wars and trying to make Stalin the good guy during the cold war.

Sammy, you're nixed on the ceeb in the embassy, I've got dibs on it, the first two floors are a pooch motel and the upper floors are a hog farm.

The vast majority of the national mainstream media despise Harper and will take an opposite position to his as a matter of course. If Hitler were alive today they would side with him over the Conservatives citing a need for a non-confrontational, nuanced, diplomatic approach because Adolf, like anyone else, can be reasoned with. I would bet money that even they don't believe that claptrap but their institutional hatred of Harper will not allow them to admit that he's right in this case.

@Chris S.

As long as Hitler came out and said that he doesn't believe in God, is in favor of state funded abortions for all, and gay marriage, they damn well would.

I skimmed that Doug Saunders article. He doesn't even support his title argument that 'we shot ourselves in the feet'. He just mewls about the move being unusual (and therefore bad). Crap article is crap.

I don't like this government but I am very happy with this move. We should kick out the Eritreans too. They collect a 'tax' on Eritreans here and use it to support terrorists like Al-Shabbab.

Anyone who thinks the UN has anything good to offer people should read A g e n d a 21. Iran is a silly little ME nation; America or Russia or Israel could level the entire nation in a heartbeat; this is not about Iran, IMO.

ET, I agree with you that Obama never wants to have to deal with this situation. However, you said this:

"Where are Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iraq, UAE in this situation. None of them want to see an imperialist Iran."

Indeed they don't. And they're perfectly happy to have the US collect all the odium in the Arab world for dealing with it. Obama knows this, which is why he doesn't want to deal with it. Just as he kept the US as uninvolved as possible in Libya.

As for an intervention in Syria? No, we've had enough of Middle East deathtraps. There's much to be said for Russia and China's position of refusing to allow international intervention in a nation's domestic affairs.

Supply arms to the Syrian opposition? No. See above. Look how well that tactic worked in Afghanistan in the 1980s. The leftover weapons supplied to the Taliban in the 1980s ended up being used against us. We supplied arms to Iraq against Iran in the 1980s and ended up having to blow them up in the 1991 Gulf War.

Enough.

LAS, for once I agree with you completely.

People. If you haven't realized that ET is a threat to Canadians,then you believe that Iran is friends to gays.Ethel makes Obama look like a commie fool,as she is.

Personally, I think we should send Tommy Spider Eyes Mulch-hair and Dull-ton over to Iran to smarten them up, this would b e after telling the nutters that both of the be-shat on a Koran.

juststinkin

yer so far down the IQ ladder from ET that you need a bullhorn for your bullsh*t so she can hear you

I read ths star article when waiting for service, and noticed that it was "opinion" but under the page title of NEWS:-)))

Lance, your points are not so. Iran IS ALREADY involved in Syria, has been for years. It supports the Syrian Alawite rulers and they allow Iran to support and provide Shiite Hezbollah.

There are several players directly involved in Syria - Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Jordan. The various backers of different players are Israel, US, Russia, Hizbollah. China is probably standing back, although providing arms to anyone who wants to pay for them.

US involvement is probably carp as the world seems to have no respect for the Incompetent In Chief.

Look how well that tactic worked in Afghanistan in the 1980s. -That worked pretty well actually. The Soviets bled real well.

The leftover weapons supplied to the Taliban in the 1980s ended up being used against us. -That's mostly a myth. Most of those weapons went to the Northern Alliance, our friends.

We supplied arms to Iraq against Iran in the 1980s and ended up having to blow them up in the 1991 Gulf War.

In lieu of much-needed direct action to eliminate Iran's regime, supplying Iraq made some good sense. Blowing up their stuff in 1991 was neither difficult nor necessary. America never should have stopped Sadaam's conquest.

Doug Saunders is the fool who recently had a book published that makes the case that Islamic immigrants are very similar to the Irish Catholics of the last century. It's not them,it's us,lefty claptrap.

He is accurately described by many as a quisling. I would hope that the Brits recognize this and send him packing,but then again he would likely end up back here.

"Islamic immigrants are very similar to the Irish Catholics of the last century"

The IRA were a bunch of cut-throat assholes who blew up as many nuns as soldiers. A couple thousand people died for nothing.

I may have misunderstood what last century was mentioned. 20th ?

No,you got that right,you misunderstood the rest of it.

I'm not sure if this was Harper's idea or diktat from the G7 insiders who are gearing up to back up Israel in a premptive strike against Iran's nuke sites. Perhaps Harper has heard that time is running short for Iran so he cut the ties before TSHTF. Perhaps he feels a strong anti Iranian diplomatic move will spare us being sucked into any future Iranian conflict.

What ever his reason I guarantee it is a safe and intelligent move based on information to which neither the nagging left or braying Journo-list is privy. Harper has proven himself to be a shrewd bargainer and a policy leader on the global stage - any media hacks that deny that are stupid enough to criticize Harper's foreign policy moves without knowing all the facts.

Again we see only the morbidly ignorant condemn without knowing the whole background story.

As far as turfing Iran is concerned, what possible need do we have for an Iranian embassy in this nation - we have no trade with them, we have little need for their passport and immigration services because no one wants to live or work in that regressed crap hole, we have no real business with them except to take in the abused masses of its brutal regime. We don't need an Iranian presense in Ottawa, we have enough interface and diplomatic relations with this despotic backwater at the UN.

I had a hoot reading the commentary on that article, it was like an echo chamber populated by pin heads - the commentary was more factually ignorant than the article.

I see the usual bunch are busy fitting the facts to suit their own warped view of the world.

Ottawa also must look to the safety of Canadian diplomats. Their withdrawal more than anything else is a signal that an Israeli strike is thought to be near.

The latest US polls, that Obama has a clear lead over Romney, makes Israeli action almost certain.
I can't evaluate the likelihood that Israel will use nuclear weapons, but they were built for precisely such cases.

I agree with John Lewis. Considering we have a very small population with almost no Army, Navy or Airforce (and damned little clout) it seems logical that getting out while the getting is still good is a prudent move. I've never understood why we would want a relationship with these nuts in the first place.

wallyj "No,you got that right,you misunderstood the rest of it."

Gotcha!

I don't think Harper is anybody's messanger. This is his call. And it's the right one.
Pearson would have been a stool pigeon but not Harper.
He has really been hitting his stride in recent months. Good for Canada.

Perhaps the Israelis tipped the friendly Canadians off to something in the works?

The left's love for terrorists tells you everything you need to know about them.

Once agin...everybody is probably jumping to confusions...

This in all probabability has absolutely nothing to with any possible Isreali interdiction of Iran's nuke programme.

A few months back a "spontaneous demonstration"(not) by "students"(not) attacked and sacked the UK embassey in Tehran.

My guess is some reliable humint indicated the crazies were planing something for the Canadian embassy. The mullahs likely still have an ugly on about that "Canadian Caper" a few years back...which involved the Candian Embassey in Tehran...

John Lewis at September 8, 2012 11:44 PM

"I can't evaluate the likelihood that Israel will use nuclear weapons, but they were built for precisely such cases."

Who could? That's a prospect most won't go near.

Call me simplistic, but why do we even bother with countries like Iran. While I was pleased with the Canadian move, my immediate thought upon hearing the news is "what took you so long?".

I'd say that the comments by ET, babt, Occam, abtrapper and John Lewis all contain elements of the truth. A few thoughts:

1. Like a CD changer that you can't turn off, stuck on repeat playing Alan Jackson's "Remember When"*, the downtown Toronto and Montreal chattering elements (Montreal's maybe less so, but this has yet to show up in the voting patterns) are living in a world that has passed them by: in the age of American global hegemony and umbrella protection, their sneeringly contemptuous armchair internationalism may have worked for them to some extent by whatever measure they use, but their line is irrelevant now.

2. babt's reference to the Claudia Rossett article is excellent and a really telling development -- a hat tip from this most serious of journalists is high praise for Harper. Recall that Ms. Rossett's dogged reporting on the Oil for Food scandal exposed, in unprecedented terms, exactly what the UN and its hangers-on were -- and are -- all about; as I recall, there seems to have been some suggestion that a few of the players in all of this, were, um, Canadians who apparently had some pretty close ties to some, er, leading Canadian politicians of the day. That Bill "Nobody did anything about Rwanda, but I was the only one to apologize" Clinton's administration tolerated all of this certainly marked the denouement of the by-gone age noted above.

3. By way of changing gears to point 4. below, I'd say Harper is motivated to a certain extent by domestic political considerations. It seems to me that there may be a burgeoning correspondence of interests and attitudes between Canadian Jewish voters and Canadian Arab and other Muslim voters (particularly women) on this issue. We know that Harper, Baird, and Kenny are having a grand old time eating the other parties' lunch on the subject. Of course, you'd never know that from reading/listening to The Star, The Globe or the CBC -- deaf, dumb and blind as they are to what's actually going on...

4. Some serious foreign policy players, including Harper, Putin and the Chinese (whatever one thinks of any of them) are involved in some pretty serious triangulation at the moment on how to get on in a post-American, and to a lesser extent, post-European world. I think that each of these folks is at some stage in the realization that, whoever wins in November, a new age of American isolationism has set in.

5. Part of that realization, I think, is to try to send the Americans one of two simple messages -- "lead, follow or get out of the way", or, alternatively, "if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem." Or maybe both; either way, "quit pretending". There is clearly alot of frustration with American foreign policy today, as I'm sure Hillary (who's powerless in this administration) well knows from getting her ear packed to the point where she doesn't even show up for her party's convention...

6. Finally, I don't think it's entirely clear that Putin wants Obama to be re-elected. If he did, why would he so willing to get up Obama's nose on Syria and other issues at election time and, thereby, highlight Obama's weakness? If power for power's sake was the only motivation, I would have thought that the more logical course would have been to go along to get along through November 6. While in no way trying to justify his behaviour, I suspect he'd like more clarity of purpose and intent as well. I'm also wondering if he's not concerned about Iran as well, as others have stated above -- it's one thing to play checkerboard diplomacy to curry influence, which has been the stock and trade of Russian diplomacy since the nineteenth century; it's another thing altogether to have Iranian troops fighting in Syria. Remember, Putin's got his own problem with Muslim extremists.

*"Remember When" is a great song which I in no way mean to insult by associating it with this crowd, but the title is apt.

Occam at September 8, 2012 10:55 PM Excellent commentary! I like and agree with everything you wrote.

"... Is this prelude to an Israeli pre-emptive strike?
If so whose side is Obama on?
Posted by: oldfart at September 8, 2012 7:57 PM ..."

Quite possibly as Obama has painted Israel into a corner , and if elected has threaten revenge on Israel.

If Israel waits until after the election , and Obama wins , he will likely renege on promises to attack Iran in the spring.

If Israel attacks Iran , the US will be drawn into the conflict (regardless of Obama's threat to stay out) ... so in reality Israel seems to have few options other than a pre-emptive strike.

"... Is this prelude to an Israeli pre-emptive strike?
If so whose side is Obama on?
Posted by: oldfart at September 8, 2012 7:57 PM ..."

Quite possibly as Obama has painted Israel into a corner , and if elected has threaten revenge on Israel.

If Israel waits until after the election , and Obama wins , he will likely renege on promises to attack Iran in the spring.

If Israel attacks Iran , the US will be drawn into the conflict (regardless of Obama's threat to stay out) ... so in reality Israel seems to have few options other than a pre-emptive strike.

It is in Canada's economic interest to see the ME blow themselves up which they are likely to do. We don't have any real reson to be there.

My reading on the ME has moved me past Sunni vs Shia. Persian Shia don't trust Iraqi Shia anymore than they did under Saddam who was a Bathist. The Iranian Persians will probably never gain dominance in the ME even if they were left to their own devices. They have plenty of reasons to want a 'bomb' even if they don't use it on Israel which I doubt they would. MADD exists in the ME even if we don't read about it.

The Kurds fascinate me as they have quietly asserted themselves in Iraq and norther Syria. The Turks and Iranians are very nervous of them especially since they now have access to oil money. As the ME churns who knows where it ends up?

@ ct at September 9, 2012 11:25 AM
Problem the Kurds have is that they are hated by both Sunni and Shia and are a small minority. Turkey has had running conflicts with the Kurds and sees them in the same light that Europe sees the Roma. Once US influence pulls completely out of Iraq I think there will be another effort to wipe them out.

Long live Israel. Way to go Harper.